Learning New Skills

Over the past two years, I’ve been trying to push myself out of my comfort zone. In November 2019, I signed up for Shred Your Fears, a one-day workshop focused on teaching women how to skateboard. I’m still not very good! But since then, I’ve been taking lessons, purchased my own skateboard, and am sooooo close to executing a fakie pivot. It's been a slow journey because, while I’m not old, I’m definitely old enough to be extremely paranoid about breaking bones. Falling hurts more than it used to! Being cautious on a skateboard definitely leads to slower progress, but it is still possible to progress. It’s also just gotten me to move in ways that I wasn’t used to before and helped increase my ankle muscles (you use your ankles to do almost everything in skateboarding).

In addition to skateboarding, I also started ballet in February 2020 at Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. Obviously, that had an abrupt break thanks to the pandemic. But they reopened in March 2021 and I’ve been attending classes since then (all masked and spaced out). I definitely feel a bit foolish sometimes as someone who has never danced before, but it has a really similar feeling to yoga but I feel like I’m actually doing something. It also focuses on muscle groups that I use when I run but uses them in different ways. I love that it’s so easy to get started and, even though they are repetitive, the beginner classes make me feel like I have space to learn and it’s ok if I progress faster (or in my case, slower) than others. I also think it’s healthy to try to get over that feeling that everyone is watching you and recognize that it doesn’t matter if you aren’t perfect… you are learning! Sometimes I still struggle with that when I am really struggling with a particular movement, but I like that ballet is pushing me both mentally and physically.